


In the swing over the creek

by petalrock



Series: creek walk small talk [1]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Existential Crisis, M/M, creek - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29839530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalrock/pseuds/petalrock
Summary: Seeing a stranger’s footprint in his spot rips apart the imaginary curtain Michael’s woven between his creek and the rest of the world. Right now, he needs that curtain fully intact and drawn tightly shut.A splash louder than the average rush of the creek comes from off to Michael’s left, downstream. He doesn’t bother looking. He knows who it is.“Rough day?” asks Calum, sitting cross-legged on the ground next to the log, halfway in the water.
Relationships: Michael Clifford/Calum Hood
Series: creek walk small talk [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2208660
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	In the swing over the creek

**Author's Note:**

> it is three in the am and i am so tired and ready for sleep. i got this idea on my walk this evening. it was a good walk. i jumped a fence. title from seven by miss taylor.

The late afternoon sun glinting off the creek is hurting Michael’s eyes, but he doesn’t feel like looking away. The water is sparkling a little bit, dancing around rocks where the riverbed slopes up shallower and gurgling away into the depths downstream. Is this what drowning would sound like? Maybe it would be louder, because the water would be rushing in his ears. Or would the water plug his ears? Then it would be quieter, right? He definitely wouldn’t be able to hear all the birds if he was drowning. Or the distant roar of the highway. Kind of funny how it would be totally possible to drown in this creek right now. It would take a lot of effort, though, because the creek is only about two feet deep, max. He would have to, like, lay down, which is kind of lame and totally not worth it. Not that Michael wants to drown himself, or anything. He just happens to be thinking about it. 

He picks at a piece of bark on the log, his usual seat of choice. He’d had to wipe off a muddy footprint when he first got here however long ago, which sucked, because it meant that someone else had been on his log. Maybe it’s weird to be possessive of nature, but Michael always has been, especially of certain spots that make him feel like he’s alone and unbothered. Seeing a stranger’s footprint in his spot rips apart the imaginary curtain Michael’s woven between his creek and the rest of the world. Right now, he needs that curtain fully intact and drawn tightly shut. 

A splash louder than the average rush of the creek comes from off to Michael’s left, downstream. He doesn’t bother looking. He knows who it is. 

“Rough day?” asks Calum, sitting cross-legged on the ground next to the log, halfway in the water.

Michael says nothing for a second. Has it been a rough day? It’s kind of been just a day. He woke up around midmorning, did the bare minimum in his classes, had an apple for lunch. But sometimes just days are the worst days. Just days scare Michael into thinking that every day after this could be just a day, that nothing interesting will ever happen again, that he’ll be doomed to plod desolately through a million monotonous days until his body gives out. Okay, maybe it has been a rough day. 

“Maybe.” 

Calum turns his head to look at him. Michael doesn’t see, but he feels Calum’s gaze like a second sun, too warm for February. 

“Want to talk about it?”

He does, a little. Most of the time, speaking problems into existence makes them feel smaller. The problems in his head are giant fear-fuelled monsters that take up too much space and make too much noise. They make Michael feel like the Grinch on Christmas. Noise, noise, noise. The drawback of saying things out loud is opening the door for judgement. But it’s only Calum. Just a couple words, and his problems could be left out to freeze in the late winter air, or swept down current. Either of those options beats the oppressive buzzing in his brain. 

“I’m scared every day will be like today.” That didn’t quite cover the magnitude of it, but it’s a start. 

“What’s wrong with today?”

“Nothing happened.”

“And that’s bad?”

“It’s boring.”

Calum is silent. He’s probably judging Michael for having the most first-world problem ever. Boredom is such a privilege to have. And it’s so solvable, too. Michael’s sort of tried to solve it. He came to the creek. Who is Michael to complain about boredom, anyways? He only knows bits and pieces of what Calum does all day. Maybe he sometimes enjoys doing absolutely nothing, and now Michael has just made an ass of himself by unknowingly shitting on Calum’s life. 

“Nothing happening is the worst,” Calum says. “Yesterday, the sun started setting, and I realized all I’d done all day was count all the river rocks from here to the overpass.”

Michael can’t stop the way his mouth twitches at that. Counting river rocks? What does that even mean?

“What did you count the river rocks for?”

“I don’t know,” Calum says before Michael even finishes asking. “I have no fucking idea. Complete waste of time.”

Michael finally turns away from the bright spot of water giving him black spots in his vision to finally look at Calum’s face. He’s staring back at Michael with dark, serious eyes. Too serious. Michael huffs out his nose, and Calum’s nostrils flare. Michael fucking loses it. Calum starts laughing, and then they’re both gasping for air, and Michael is so glad to feel lighter. 

“Counting rocks,” he says weakly, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles to clear the sunspots and tears of laughter. He pulls himself together as best he can. “How many were there?”

“I think I might have accidentally jumped from three thousand straight to five thousand, so to be honest, I’m not sure,” Calum says, and Michael cackles, scaring a couple of nearby finches into the air. 

“Oh, wow, that’s incredible,” Michael says. “Thank you for making me laugh on this stupid void of a day.”

“I like hearing you laugh,” Calum says. Michael ducks his head to hide his smile. He’s never ready for Calum to say things like that, even though he does kind of often. Michael figures it’s just how Calum is. Maybe it’s a river person thing, giving oddly romantic compliments. Michael’s honestly not even sure what Calum is exactly, to be honest. He just seems to materialize out of the creek whenever Michael sits and waits long enough. And long enough has been getting shorter and shorter with every visit. 

“So what makes you think every day will be boring like today?” Calum asks. 

“Well, it just could be,” Michael says. After laughing, talking is easier. “And I wouldn’t know until the end of every day when I would sit and realize that nothing happened, and it would be too late to do anything about it. And then suddenly I’d be eighty years old and every boring day would be behind me. And I would have done nothing. It would be so easy to accomplish nothing if you just didn’t try.” He studies Calum’s face like the answers will be there if he looks close enough at the curls across his forehead, his dark eyebrows, the wide bridge of his nose. 

“I think the boring days make the good days better,” Calum says. The words themselves are trite, but Michael knows Calum is genuine. “They can be a chance to reset. Check in with yourself, you know? Make sure there’s a difference between an average day and a bad day. Sometimes, it takes a day of counting rocks to help me really appreciate the days when I get to play with the otters, or make rock paint, or help the newest owl pair build a nest. Or hang out with you.”

“Oh,” says Michael, because what is he supposed to say to that? Calum is right, at least mostly. This won’t make the boring days any less worse. But maybe it will make the good days a little better. Everything is relative, or whatever. If every day were interesting, it would cancel out and become monotonous anyways. Exceedingly average days are proof that most days are better than average. 

“Yeah?” Calum says. 

“Yeah,” Michael agrees quietly. “Thank you.” He scoots over on the log a bit, and Calum reaches back and pulls himself up next to Michael. They sit in silence for a bit, and Michael’s eyes skim over the patch of water he’d fixated on before, up the riverbank to the blackberry bushes, the birch trees. Upstream, the sun is thinking about setting, painting the clouds a light gold. 

Calum shuffles closer and drops his head onto Michael's shoulder. Michael relaxes into Calum’s side, leaning his head on top of Calum’s. He takes a risk and drops his open palm on Calum’s knee, and then their fingers are tangled. Michael smiles. They watch the sun go down in two brilliant explosions, one a bright orange in the sky, the other a dark pink reflected on the water. 


End file.
